The story of d4vd is a decidedly modern one. Before music, d4vd wanted to be a professional Fortnite player. Yet, after his YouTube videos got demonetized for song copyright infringement, his mom offhandedly suggested that he make his own music to put into his videos. Without any experience, d4vd started making songs on his phone in his sister's closet and posting them online. The songs quickly took off and made him an online sensation -- a voice for a generation that is both eclectic in its interests and homogenized in its cultural consumption. D4vd’s music captures this dichotomy of diversity and singularity, eschewing genres and themes for a more raw and personal approach to storytelling. After a successful first full-length album, d4vd recently announced his sophomore project. We sat down with the rising star to discuss culture, music and more!

Q - Between video games and music, so many of your cultural touch points revolve around online spaces and communities. How do you engage with the internet and online culture?

A - I interact and engage with the internet in a very familial way. In a sense, the internet birthed me and birthed so many of my interests and hobbies in such raw spontaneous ways. I'm constantly online on social media and various platforms staying up to date on the latest gaming events, music trends, and various other online nuances.

Q - ‘Genre-defying’ is a common way people describe your music, yet I feel like there are clear genres; it just doesn't feel limited by them. Do you look at or think about genre when making music?

A - I'm constantly thinking about genres with a particular sense of intention when I make my music, maybe that's why people attach “genre-defying” to my name. I'm always trying to find new ways to innovate and blend sounds that I love together to make something new and fresh. For example using very pop-esque melodies on a somber, more melancholic track or vice versa. I love using contrasts in emotions to send a very clear message in my music.

Q - Tell us about your upcoming album. What was the most exciting part about this new project? What was the most challenging?

A - The most exciting part of making Withered was the pure rush and euphoria that came with looking at a finished tracklist. Being able to look at a collection of songs that took over a year and a half to congregate, and saying that final, “Wow, it's finished” was the greatest feeling of all time. The most challenging part was how long it took to get there haha. Countless hours of finding my sound and traveling to various locations to make music in different moods, vibes, and mindsets was insanely taxing on my morale. Constantly consuming viral music on the daily and forgetting my own artistic path time and time again and having to pull myself back down to my core unique d4vd sound was a struggle.

Q - Your previous project, Petals to Thorns, has such vivid imagery and metaphors. Is your upcoming project the next chapter in that same narrative? Or is it a completely new story being told?

A - Withered is a continuation of Petals To Thorns thematically. But emotionally there is a new story being told here. Most of Petals To Thorns I wrote from other people's perspectives and experiences – even taking inspiration from movies and television shows to write my songs. But with Withered I wrote it about my own life, my own experiences, my own heartbreak and love. So I'm excited to see how well it resonates with the listeners who now know they're hearing a much more vulnerable side of my art now.

Q - You are known for your DIY approach to making music, does this new album keep the same ethos or was it a more expansive process?

A - Withered is very much a mesh of my legendary DIY music-making process and a bit of the more expansive side. I wrote half of the album at my home in Houston, Texas alone and isolated, and the other half of the project in London, England with my friends. Both approaches to the music-making process brought forth a new sense of musical discovery for me. Figuring out how I work with other people every day for two weeks and then figuring out how I work with myself was a very introspective experience that i found clarity in.

Q - Growing up, what was your relationship like with clothing/fashion and how has that changed/evolved since you've found success making music?

A - Growing up I never had a sense of fashion at all really haha. My parents bought all of my clothes until I was 17. So after finding success in music, I was able to find a brand new outlet of self-expression that was almost completely foreign to me for so many years. Falling in love with brands like Acne, Valentino, YSL, and so many other amazing brands that I have collaborated with and have yet to collaborate with has opened my eyes to a whole new world of style and expression.

Q - What’s one piece of culture, be it anime, video game, music, etc., that you feel heavily inspired by but is underappreciated or hasn’t gotten the recognition it deserves?

A - An anime that I take inspiration from regularly is Attack On Titan. It is definitely one of the bigger animes but I still feel like it's under-appreciated in certain aspects in the way that other creatives never seem to acknowledge the impact the writing of its story has. Eren (the main character) being both the protagonist and the antagonist of the series is one of the greatest pieces of storytelling in my opinion with the flawless execution of the world-building as the series progresses.